In China, several deadly attacks betray a deep malaise in society

On November 11, a 62-year-old man threw his heavy 4×4 into a crowd of people who were doing gymnastics in front of a sports center in the heart of the city of Zhuhai, in southern China. The death toll was 35 and dozens injured. Immediately arrested by the police and placed in detention, the man wanted to express his anger following a stormy divorce which dispossessed him of all his property. No one knows the fate of this man today. All videos of the bloody drama have been censored. It was the worst killing in recent years in China, a country unaccustomed to violent incidents of this magnitude.Regime censorshipFive days later, in the city of Changde, in the east of the country, a young man 21-year-old carried out a knife attack in a school which left eight people dead and around twenty injured. According to the first elements of the investigation, the suspect is a student from the class of 2024, who failed to obtain his diploma and “returned to school to express his anger and commit these murders”, according to Yixing police. Here again, the police say no more, and the videos of this attack of incredible violence have been deleted from digital platforms. “Faced with an economy in free fall, crushing household debt and growing frustrations, stronger, anger can only be expressed through this kind of violence,” said Desmond Shum, a former Chinese businessman who has remained in close contact with economic circles and has been in exile for years in Great Britain. “Social insecurity continues to grow, and economic despair pushes many Chinese to individual violence,” adds this observer of the Chinese situation who has counted dozens of these cases of fatal incidents since the beginning of the year. .“Abandoned by the system” A study published in July by the Center for International and Strategic Studies based in Washington points to a “deep social unease expressed through these incidents, which send a serious warning about the state of Chinese society. Echoing these worrying findings, Chinese psychotherapist Xiaojie Qin notes that “many Chinese have been abandoned by the system and are becoming marginalized. Without sufficient emotional balance, they explode.” Quoted by the British news agency Reuters in Shanghai, Qu Weiguo, professor at the prestigious Fudan University, observes that these cases of “indiscriminate revenge against society” have common denominators: feeling downgrading, mental problems, deep resentment towards a system that does not treat them fairly. “They see no other solution to make themselves heard. »The censorship imposed around all these cases of violence increases public opinion’s distrust of a regime that conceals the truth. In a very difficult post-Covid era for a large part of Chinese, with more than 20% youth unemployment, the unwritten social contract between the Communist Party and the people – the party guarantees prosperity and security in exchange for submission political – seems less and less certain. “A few weeks before the Chinese New Year, when everyone must settle their debts, we must expect an increase in these desperate acts,” fears Desmond Shum.



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